


Fathers and Sons

by One_Chicago_Fanfiction



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Bi Icon Jay Halstead, Death of a Parent, Emotionally supportive Voight, Homophobic Language, Jay sleeps on Voight's couch, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23447149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Chicago_Fanfiction/pseuds/One_Chicago_Fanfiction
Summary: Days before his father's funeral, Jay is struggling to cope. When he turns to drinking alone as a coping mechanism, Voight steps in before Jay can lose himself.
Kudos: 57





	Fathers and Sons

Jay was better than this—he knew that. In fact, that was exactly the thing he was trying to forget, erasing his truth a little more with every drink he downed, every shot some pretty guy sent his way from the other end of the bar. He’d started the night with the intention of drinking at Molly’s, sitting quietly in a corner booth and drinking until he was warm with the buzz of alcohol in his system. Then he’d stagger home and fall into a blissfully dreamless sleep. That was his plan, but the longer he’d stared at Molly’s from across the street, the more real it felt—the more claustrophobic. Every time the door was pushed open he caught wisps of laughter and loud voices from within, and the familiarity of it was what drove him away in the end. 

As grateful as he was for a community place like Molly’s, tonight he needed something else. Tonight, Jay Halstead wanted to be a stranger. 

He’d never seen the pretty guy before. Never seen the pretty guy, and the bartender didn’t stop to chat. She just poured the drinks, took his money and moved onto the next person. Nobody slid onto the stool next to him to ask about his day, about work, about his life. He liked that. Just for tonight, he wanted to be anonymous, wanted to drink himself into a temporary oblivion and dull a few of the memories that ached the most. 

His father in a hospital bed, arguing one hour, gone the next, lying motionless as his sons chose the right time to let him slip quietly from the world. Will making all the phone calls, informing their father’s friends, getting started on the funeral arrangements. He could already see the exhaustion setting into Will after just a few days—too pale, bags under his eyes, hair out of place. And probably, Jay should have been with his brother right now, right by his side, as steadfast for Will as Will had been for him. And Jay was strong. He could do that for Will, could be what his brother needed him to be.

He just needed one night to fall apart, alone, in a part of the city he didn’t frequent. 

The last conversation he’d had with his father was an argument. His father was in a hospital bed and still Jay had hated him. The fleeting kind of hate, the sort fuelled by things they’d never got around to resolving. Fathers and sons. Fathers who drank every day and threw clumsy punches at their kids. And now Jay was here getting drunk alone, and when Will had told him their father was gone, Jay hit him. What if Jay and his father hadn’t been all that different after all? If Jay was capable of all the darker parts of his father, what if his father had been capable of the good things Jay was? What if, beneath the exterior, his dad had the potential to work through the issues he had with both his kids—to reach a place where they were functional, at the very least? 

What if, one day, his father had apologised? 

He swallowed down the bitter dregs of his bottle and remembered the scorn in his father’s slurred voice, years ago. The first time he’d called Jay a faggot and meant it. The first time it wasn’t just a word he flung around casually, like calling someone an asshole. He’d spat the word at his youngest son, and thrown a punch that propelled his whole body forward, clumsy and staggering, until he lost his balance and fell through the glass table in their living room. 

That was a part of their father Will hadn’t known, and it wasn’t like Jay was sitting here grieving for that man, or wishing he was still around to say things like that. But any chance they’d ever had to fix things between them was gone, and Jay was the one who had to live with those unfinished things.   
He knew, slouched on his barstool, that for his own sake he’d have to forgive his father anyway. But how was he supposed to do that without him? How was he meant to reconcile that man with the man who’d kept newspaper clippings of his sons’ public successes, who’d been proud of what they’d achieved—who’d loved them without ever being able to say it?

Jay didn’t have any of the answers he needed right now, and the alcohol hadn’t helped enlighten him.

This is how the fight almost started. Midnight came and Jay decided he’d hit his limit. He felt buzzed and emotional and cracked wide open. He felt raw and clumsy and ready to collapse into bed. He slipped down from his barstool and almost lost his balance, went careening into a guy walking past him with a full tray of drinks in his hands. The guy was younger than Jay, a little taller, not as lean but completely enraged when the drinks smashed on the tile floor and left the two of them soaked by some of the casualties. Beer, pungent and suddenly disgusting. Jay struggled to right himself and made a face at his wet shirt.

The younger guy shoved him, hard. Jay’s back collided with the bar and his knees almost gave out beneath him.

“Watch where you’re going, asshole,” the guy said. And Jay struggled to stand upright, forced a humourless laugh and looked the guy as straight in the eye as he could. 

“Fuck you,” he said. 

The kid lunged for him. Fists balled in Jay’s shirt, the stranger’s face mere inches from his, eyes alive with anger, the guy’s strength keeping Jay pinned against the bar. Passersby cheered for the fight, or simply drank and ignored the pair of them. Only the bartender yelled over the music for them to break it up. The kid made a remark at her even Jay didn’t hear, and Jay used the moment to try and shove him out of his way. To no avail. The kid, somewhere in his twenties, threw a punch that landed hard, sent a terrible white pain searing through Jay’s jaw. He shouted something. Jay’s ears were ringing too loud for him to hear, and if Jay was even capable of fighting back, he had no intention of doing so. He’d take this fight however it came, and he’d live with however it ended. 

And then someone stepped in. 

“Hey,” came a voice, almost instantly familiar as strong hands grabbed the stranger’s arm and pulled him back from Jay. “Get out of here, kid. What’s wrong with you?”

The stranger moved to throw one more punch, and Sergeant Hank Voight flashed his badge and the world fell back into normal motion. 

“You hit me,” Voight said, “you’re assaulting an officer. I’ll drag you to the station right now, book you in myself. Otherwise walk away. You only get one warning.”

“That guy owes me a round,” the stranger protested, and only now Jay could hear the drunken slur in his words. Voight scoffed.

“He owes you nothing,” he said, giving the guy a hard push that was enough to convince him to walk away from them. Jay breathed out, almost relieved. And then Voight turned to him. “Let’s go. You and me need to have a conversation. Outside. You're finished in here."

“I’m going home,” Jay said, defensive. He pulled his jacket on, heart pounding with the nerves from having been found here by his sergeant. Voight laughed, humourless and hollow, a gesture that didn’t even reach his eyes. He put his hands on Jay’s shoulders and steered him towards the door. 

“Not in this condition you’re not,” Voight said. 

“I’m fine, Sarge. Get off of me.” He made a weak attempt at pushing one of Voight’s hands away, but his sergeant’s grip only tightened. Voight didn’t speak again until they were outside.

“You don’t get to tell me you’re fine,” he said, his gravel voice loud enough to draw looks from people passing by across the street. “You don’t get to walk away from this without talking to me.”

“So it’s your way or nothing,” Jay said, whirling around to face him. “Voight’s rules or…or…”

“Finish that sentence and you and me are gonna have a problem,” Voight said, arm out, guiding Jay towards his car parked up at the curb. When Jay was poured into the passenger seat and struggling with his seatbelt, Voight said, “And yeah, you’re damn right. It is my way or nothing. You don’t get an in between.” And then he slammed the door.   
In the time it took Voight to round the car and slip into the driver’s seat, Jay already felt himself sobering up. He drew in a shaky breath as the reality of the situation set in. What a stupid, benign situation this whole thing was. A bar fight? With someone probably ten years his junior? Jay was a war vet, a detective who’d probably have his own unit one day—and his sergeant was dragging him out of a dingy bar, drunk and looking for a fight. 

On top of all that, nausea had set in. Voight pulled the car away from the curb and Jay fought the urge to throw up. 

“Sarge—“ he started.

“Listen to me,” Voight interrupted. “If your head’s not straight, if you need time to grieve for your father, I get that. Believe me, I do. But you’re not alone here. You got your family, Jay. Your brother, your unit. Next time you wanna drink alone, you call Will. You can’t talk to your brother, you call Hailey. You call Adam, or Kev. You call me. Any one of us has your back in this, Jay. All you gotta do is reach out.”

“I know,” Jay said quietly, slouched down in the seat, watching Chicago streets pass them by beyond the window and trying not to let it send him dizzy. 

“Do you?” Voight asked, and it was only then Jay realised they weren’t heading towards his own apartment.

“Sarge,” Jay said, pulling himself a little more upright in the seat. “You missed my turn.”

“You’re not going home,” Voight said. “Not tonight.”

“You’re…you’re taking me to your place?” Jay asked, closing his eyes as the world started spinning around him again. 

“That’s right,” Voight said. 

“Sarge,” Jay said. “Really? This feels a lot like an—intervention.”

Voight made a non committal noise in his throat, and the rest of the drive passed in silence, Jay swallowing bile, sucking in slow breaths. 

Voight’s couch was comfortable enough. He had spare rooms, but there was something about holing up in one that didn’t seem appealing to Jay. It was either Justin’s old room or Erin’s, and Jay couldn’t face the thought of either. So he took the blanket Voight handed him, and cracked the window open for the steady stream of cool air as he sat there, arms wrapped weakly around a bowl to throw up into, a glass of water and a box of pain killers on the table at his side. Jay kicked off his shoes and simply breathed, slow and deliberate, trying not to focus on the pain radiating through his jaw. No lasting damage, Voight had said. Nothing broken, just one hell of a bruise in the morning.  
Voight took a seat in the armchair opposite the couch, one leg crossed over the other, simply watching Jay drink the water, watching him feel sorry for himself. But he didn’t say anything, and there was nothing harsh in his gaze. 

Eventually Jay had to speak, just to stop the walls from feeling as if they’d close in on him any second. 

“We fought,” he said, glancing at Voight then dropping his gaze again. “Me and the old man. Last conversation we ever had was an argument. I called him—a thankless old prick. That’s the last thing I ever said to my father.” He scoffed weakly, eyes fixed on the bowl in his lap.

“Fathers and sons,” Voight shrugged. “That’s a complicated relationship. My experience—it doesn’t always get easier. That’s not just on you. It’s on him too. Relationships like that take work from both sides.”

“Yeah,” Jay breathed, then swallowed hard. “I mean, it’s not like he’s not the first person I’ve lost. It’s just…I should have apologised to him. There were things he should have been sorry for too, but I don’t know if he ever was. And now? I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Hm,” said Voight, considering Jay’s words for a long moment before he went on. “Look, me and Justin—we had a lot of unresolved issues, okay? A lot of things I should have said to him. A lot of things he needed to hear. I’m sure he had things he never told me, too. I’ve spent too many nights wondering if I could have made a difference to his life, to his death. But Jay, here’s what you gotta do with that. You gotta live with it. That’s it. That’s all you gotta do. And if you can’t forgive your old man? You have to forgive yourself.”

Jay looked away. 

“I just…” he started, searching for the words. “I feel like we got it so wrong. Both of us. And now…”

“I wasn’t a perfect father, Jay,” Voight said. “Far from it. Maybe if I’d done more for Justin as a kid his life would’ve panned out different. Setting him up right—that was my job. And I failed. And I had to make my peace with that, because if you don’t, if you can’t get your head straight from this, that’s your badge. Not today, maybe not soon, but somewhere down the line. You’re a good cop, Jay. You gotta hold onto that. You did that. You did it right.”

“Yeah,” Jay said quietly, and Voight rose from his chair.

“Get some sleep,” he said. 

“Hey, Voight,” Jay said, and Voight turned to face him again from he doorway. “You did everything you could for Justin. We all saw it.”

“Mm,” Voight said, and that was all he said, but the expression on his face was almost a smile—small and sad, but there all the same. He gave Jay a nod, and flicked the light off as he left the room. He left Jay alone in the half light, just the table lamp and the streetlight pouring in through the window as he stared down at his glass of water and took another deep breath, nausea still rolling through him. He gripped the bowl a little tighter. 

He grew tired, eventually, Voight’s words still echoing through his mind. The burden of it all wasn’t gone, was barely even eased, but if nothing else had come from tonight, Jay at least thought he saw the beginnings of the path back to being alright. All he had to do now was get through the funeral. Just a couple more days before that was behind him, and then maybe he could process all of this.

Okay, he thought—he’d get through this, and he wouldn’t have to do it alone. 

Jay Halstead drifted off to sleep on his sergeant’s couch, and dreamed of nothing bad.


End file.
